Big Walleyes? Nope, nothing to see here!

If you want to catch some big, maybe even enormous walleyes, here’s what you should do. Go to Lake Erie. Or Lake of The Woods. Perhaps northern Minnesota. Don’t bother with Green Bay or Door County. Nope. Nothing to catch here. Just pass us right by. Oh, who am I kidding, anyone who cares already knows that Door County is a world class destination for walleyes, particularly trophy walleyes. Anglers come from all over the Midwest and further to have a chance for a fish of a lifetime, whether it be smallmouth bass, Chinook salmon, muskie, rainbow trout, northern and yes, walleye. I have had friends and, well let’s call them acquaintances, who read my tales of Door County fishing, and admonished me with; “Hey, you shouldn’t tell be telling everyone about the great fishing, pretty soon everyone will be coming here!” Well, look around, they are already here. The secret is out if it ever was a secret. Each spring and summer Door County is host to regional and national walleye tournaments that draw some of the biggest names in professional fishing. The National Walleye Tour has made a stop in Green Bay waters and will probably be back. Cabela’s sponsors the Green Bay Walleye Series where the winner walks off with $12K. Hundreds of big time professional guides, many Door County residents, take thousands  of paying customers out on our waters to tag some big walleyes. Our local tackle shops like Howie’s in Sturgeon Bay and Lakeshore Adventures in Baileys Harbor sell these anglers a lot of tackle.  I know I have spent plenty on the hot walleye baits. All these anglers have to have a place to eat, drink and sleep. Walleye fishing in Door County is big business. 

So, I am not letting any cats out of any bags when I announce that you can catch big walleyes in Door County. I’ve known this for years, but to be honest, I have not taken full advantage of the opportunity. I have caught my share of big walleyes over the years. Although I spent much of my life fishing walleyes all over Wisconsin and Ontario, by far the biggest walleyes I have caught have come from Door County waters. It’s just that there are so many fishing opportunities within a short drive from my house, that I often get distracted. Spring in Door County usually finds me preoccupied with brown trout, northerns and early season bass. Not to mention bagging a wild turkey or two. Sometimes I just don’t have time to target walleyes. So much water, so little time. I finally got around to chasing the wily walleye this week on outings with two excellent anglers and friends. 

It all started when fishing buddy Terry sent me a YouTube video of some dude catching big walleyes near Sturgeon Bay. I typically hate fishing videos. I am not much of a fishing voyeur. I’m surely not interested in watching some other guy doing the exact thing I would rather be doing myself. Too frustrating. However, this video was shot by Scheels rep Tom Boley just the day before and Terry wanted to know if I recognized the location he was fishing. I sure did. It was a stretch of shoreline on the Bay side very near Sturg. The video showed Tom catching one huge walleye after another. Now I know how these videos work, he was condensing a whole day of fishing into a 19-minute video, but still it sure looked like the action was pretty good. I was intrigued. I decided to give this spot a try.

After waiting out a few days of full gales on the lake, I convinced Paul, longtime fishing co-conspirator, to accompany me on the quest for a trophy walleye. We launched at The Quarry ramp and headed out on a windless, partly sunny afternoon. We quickly found ourselves in the very area where the video was shot. I tied on a swim bait, just like the one Boley used, and emulated the cast and retrieve technique I had seen in the video. Paul decided to use a more patient approach. As I moved the boat around with the trolling motor. Paul drifted a jig and plastic tail along the bottom. Within minutes, Paul’s rod was doubled over with the weight of a big fish. Soon we had put a 27” walleye in the net. Nice start. You should understand that before this weekend’s general fishing opener in Wisconsin, you are only allowed to keep one walleye over 15-inches on the open waters of Green Bay. However, most of the walleyes we would be catching, including this beauty, are large spawned out females. It is important that we keep the genetics of such large fish in the population. I typically release walleyes of this size. In addition, large, old walleyes are not the best table fare compared to the “eaters”, 15 to 22-inches. In my opinion.  Paul released his fish and we returned to the hunt. Stubbornly, I kept casting my silver-flaked swim bait, while Paul returned to his drift technique. Soon Paul was struggling with another big fish. This one stayed deep and had no interest in coming anywhere near the boat. After a momentous battle, I lifted the fish onto the floor of the boat. It was a monster. The 30-inch walleye was the largest walleye Paul had ever caught in a lifetime of fishing.  And he’s as old as I am! After pictures, high-fives and congratulations, the gorgeous fish was successfully returned to the lake. I’m stubborn, but not stupid. I quickly threaded a plastic paddle tail just like the one Paul was using onto my jig head and soon we were both drifting our baits along the bottom of the mussel encrusted lake bottom. This technique does lend itself to losing a lot of jigs (I lost nine or so), but it’s a small price to pay to get your bait in front of the bottom dwelling walleyes. The action remained steady. I had the misfortune of losing two or three nice fish, but after about four hours of fishing, we had managed to boat eight walleyes between 24 and 30 inches. In addition, Paul boated a 20.5-inch, 5.6-pound smallie. We also tied into a couple of bonus northern pike. By this time, the east wind was blowing off the lake making for some very chilly conditions. We decided to call it a day and headed back to the Quarry. It was a great outing.  

I was anxious to get back to this spot the next day.  Paul was heading Up Nort’ for the opener. I guess he had his fill of catching big walleyes, so I hooked up with Terry to see if we could repeat our success.  We met at the Potawatomi State Park boat launch and I climbed aboard Terry’s boat, a sleek Tuffy with a black Mercury OptiMax perched on the transom. The east wind we ended with yesterday continued to blow this day. It turned out to be a rather rainy, raw May morning. Undaunted, we motored the short distance back to the site of yesterday’s success. We began our drift in about 15FOW and soon I was battling a fat walleye. We did notice that there were quite a few more boats around compared to yesterday. Many of the boats were the big rigs of professional anglers. We recognized the colorfully logoed boats of several local guides. As I said, this is not a secret bite.

I would like to report that Terry and I repeated the success we had the day before. I cannot. The fish did not seem to be as active on this windy, rainy day. I ended up boating just two walleyes about 26-inches but lost at least three other big fish before we could get them to the net. By far, the highlight of the outing was when Terry hooked up with a monster later in the day. The fish hit hard and gave Terry an epic battle. Our eyes widened when we finally saw a huge northern rise to the surface, and I slipped it into the net. As the fish writhed on the carpeted floor of Terry’s Tuffy, we scrambled to measure the fish. We stretched the tape from snout to tail. A less principled angler would have quickly pronounced this a 40-inch pike. However, no matter how we moved our eye angle, we could not quite get the fish to reach the 4-0. We both agreed to call it a good thirty-nine and three quarters.  A beautiful northern pike. The fish of the day. 

In two half days of fishing on the Green Bay waters of Door County, we had boated ten walleyes over two feet in length plus a number of bass and northerns. These included a 30-inch walleye, a 5.6-pound smallmouth bass and an “almost“ 40-inch northern.  Any one of these fish would represent the “fish of a lifetime” for most recreational anglers. 

So, if you want to catch big fish, go to Canada. Please. Take a lot of your friends with you. I’ll be just fine fishing here, near my home in Baileys Harbor. 

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Bruce

Questions or comments to bsmith733@gmail.com